Dear Terry and All, A few minutes ago, I sent this letter to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear NASA, Why do you change the numbers from metric measures to old measures when you report them on your web pages? In Australia, as in all other nations in the world, your numbers simply don't make sense; in fact they can make your organisation appear rather foolish. I have been reading your web pages at: http://ssppgse.gsfc.nasa.gov/ejection_sys/hes.html where I found, "Spacecraft can weigh up to 150 pounds with a center of gravity (CG) no more than 10.25 inches above the separation plane. The spacecraft must also be balanced to within .25 inches of the ejection centerline. Maximum spacecraft diameter is 19 inches. Maximum height is 20.5 inches (depending upon carrier system configuration) Customers can choose to fly with or without an opening lid (Hitchhiker Motorized Door Assembly) at the top of the canister, and have options of ejection velocities from 1.0 to 4.0 ft/sec." and at: http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/mission.html where I found, "The average payload increased from 407 pounds in 1964 to more than 3000 pounds in 1988. Average balloon volume has increased from 2.8 million cubic feet (MCF) in 1964 to over 20.0 MCF in 1988. Today, payloads weighing 5000 pounds are quite common and balloons of 20 to 30 MCF are flown routinely." Might I suggest that phrases and words such as 'up to', 'no more than', 'within', naked decimal points, 'Maximum', 'velocities from', 'average', 'more than', coupled with some quite bizarre precision of the calculated values tends to suggest that the person who made the conversions from metric measures to these numbers appears to be barely numerate. They seem to be numerate enough to operate a calculator, but not numerate enough to know how to interpret the subsequent display on the calculator screen. As I read these items from NASA, I kept thinking how much does this cost? How much does it cost NASA to employ someone to dumb down NASA data for the general public in the USA? And how much does it costs the likes of me, and other scientifically literate and numerate folk, who are wondering to what sizes these NASA reports are actually referring. We have to try and undumb the figures back to the original metric values and hope we make the right guesses about the rounding that we have to do, and to guess the rounding that our dumb-downer has already done for (to) us. Hhhrrrmmmph! Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia on 2003-08-31 08.29, Terry Simpson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > It is still commonplace to find Nasa publicity without metric units. > > "Spacecraft can weigh up to 150 pounds with a center of gravity (CG) no more > than 10.25 inches above the separation plane. The spacecraft must also be > balanced to within .25 inches of the ejection centerline. Maximum spacecraft > diameter is 19 inches. Maximum height is 20.5 inches (depending upon carrier > system configuration) Customers can choose to fly with or without an opening > lid (Hitchhiker Motorized Door Assembly) at the top of the canister, and > have options of ejection velocities from 1.0 to 4.0 ft/sec." > http://ssppgse.gsfc.nasa.gov/ejection_sys/hes.html > > "The average payload increased from 407 pounds in 1964 to more than 3000 > pounds in 1988. Average balloon volume has increased from 2.8 million cubic > feet (MCF) in 1964 to over 20.0 MCF in 1988. Today, payloads weighing 5000 > pounds are quite common and balloons of 20 to 30 MCF are flown routinely." > http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/mission.html > -- > Terry Simpson > Human Factors Consultant > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.connected-systems.com > Phone: +44 7850 511794 > > >
